Third baseman Travis Shaw slugged the first two home runs of his major league career and had four RBIs as the Boston Red Sox overcame another shaky start from Joe Kelly in an 11-7 win over the Tampa...

2014 Predictions: Gazing into the granite ball

EDITORIAL

In preparation for the New Year, we offer the following list of predictions for 2014. They might be affected by the fact that we could not find a crystal ball, so we used a hunk of the Old Man of the Mountain instead. But we polished it, so it’s probably good.

1. Scott Brown will reveal that he moved to New Hampshire to run for Rye selectman. His campaign will spend $12 million on the race — matched by $27 million in SuperPac money — to win in a landslide in the March town election. Years later he will later be defeated by an actual Native American candidate.

2. House Public Works and Highways Committee Chairman David Campbell, D-Nashua, who admitted running over a group of ducks in the parking lot of the Crowne Royal Hotel in Nashua on Dec. 23, will replace family patriarch Phil Robertson on the A&E reality show “Duck Dynasty.” Cambpell will show the duck-hunting Robertson clan how to hunt effectively using only a BMW and a duck call. He will resign before the final episode after a mysterious incident involving his new Maserati, an alligator and the Aflac mascot.

3. U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is re-elected after Congress passes her Affordable Fenway Act. The 3,000-page bill prohibits the Red Sox from charging more than $25 for a ticket, sets beer prices at $3, and mandates “free” hot dogs and popcorn for each patron. She defeats Republican candidate Bo Derek in a landslide with the slogan: “If you like your Big Papi, you can watch your Big Papi from the front row. And I’ve mandated that he accept every request for an autograph.”

But immediately after the bill takes effect in 2019, the Red Sox go bankrupt, trade the entire roster to Tampa Bay for a beachfront mansion and 67-foot yacht, and replace Fenway Park with a wind farm called the Green Energy Monster, which earns John Henry a fat income thanks to federal green energy tax credits.

4. The New Hampshire Republican Party solves its candidate recruitment problem by pitching New Hampshire as a tax haven/personal refuge for Hollywood Republicans. They recruit Bo Derek for U.S. Senate and James Woods for governor. Bruce Willis moves here, but is bitten by a fisher cat while overseeing construction of John McClane’s Sugar Shack in the new Live Free or Die Hard theme park in Gorham and vows revenge on the entire species. He is last seen riding a fully armed Blackhawk helicopter over the White Mountain National Forest, shouting “Yippee Ki-yay, Fisher Kittie!”

5. The bid to legalize casino gambling in New Hampshire fails in the Legislature after Willis announces the Live Free or Die Hard theme park. However, the park’s financing dries up when Willis disappears while hunting fisher cats with high-grade explosives. Seeing her opportunity, Miley Cyrus announces plans to build a tattoo parlor/dance studio on the same location, but is outbid for the land by the Sci-Fi Channel. The cable network single-handedly revives the New Hampshire economy with the creation of Gorham Gitmo, a maximum security prison for international terrorists/reality TV show in which terrorists transferred from Guantanamo Bay can win their freedom if they can escape between December and March and make it alive to the Canadian border, which is protected by 2,000 New Hampshire 2nd Amendment activists. Happy New Year.